In this (very long) interview, Chris Taylor talks about the future of Gas Powered Games and his Wildman Kickstarter.

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In this exclusive interview, Chris Taylor and I chat about the fall of Gas Powered Games, the studio responsible for Dungeon Siege and Supreme Commander. Chris has staked the future of his company on Wildman, a Kickstarter-funded fusion of Civilization and action RPGs, but the lack of media buzz (and more importantly, pledges) has left Chris with little choice but to layoff employees and contemplate an increasingly stark future...

Gas Powered Games should be the poster boy for the independent developer. They made hit games as a work for hire developer when it was difficult and maintained independence during a time of aggressive acquisitions from publishers. For many that would be considered a huge success.

Yet look where they are, this is just an example of how the work for hire model with publishers is severely broken. When successful independent developers end up broke. Not to say that they didn't make mistakes, because it sounds like for the size of developer GPG are they over invest in prototypes.

Yet I'd rather work Chris Taylor than most other bosses. He cares about his staff he and cares about the games. Just look at the numerous studios that have treated their staff like sh*t and given them nothing when making them redundant. He has been a responsible employer.

Making the transition from the traditional work-for-hire model to looking at other business models is really hard. I can vouch for that with first hand experience because we've been going through that the last two years, only we're fortunate to be smaller than GPG.

Come on you bozos! Pledge like I did! Wildman is going to be awesome if it ever gets the funding.

This is like throwing your $$$ away. Sorry, can't trust what he is trying to do, and there is no way the sum they are shooting for is enough to fully support this game. If they actually had most of it done, then it would be a different issue, but AFAICT, this is still in prototype stage.

I skipped through the vid and came upon him talking about cancer and food we eat... I feel bad for this guy. He is right though and I feel bad for the future of people who regularly eat fast food and the like.

__________________"This game raped my wife, slaughtered my son and left me for dead."

This is like throwing your $$$ away. Sorry, can't trust what he is trying to do, and there is no way the sum they are shooting for is enough to fully support this game. If they actually had most of it done, then it would be a different issue, but AFAICT, this is still in prototype stage.

Wow, you are clueless about how Kickstarter works. For one thing, if it doesn't fund, you get all your money back. Second, of course its in the prototype stage. Most Kickstarter projects are. Third, this guy has been designing AAA titles as a studio head for 15 years, I think he friggin knows how much money he needs!!

only kickstarter i ever funded, so far. while there's been plenty of worthy games on kickstarter, there are very few worthy developers. loved the dungeon siege games, love how down to earth and non-egotistical he is, he's not trying to make anyone his bitch or spit out another copy/paste POS (the cornerstone of the gaming industry these days).

Wow, you are clueless about how Kickstarter works. For one thing, if it doesn't fund, you get all your money back. Second, of course its in the prototype stage. Most Kickstarter projects are. Third, this guy has been designing AAA titles as a studio head for 15 years, I think he friggin knows how much money he needs!!

I know how kickstarter works, but you seem to fail to understand how a normal business works. It doesn't matter if he designed 1000 AAA games, his studio is BUST, no funds, that is why he is trying to get a cash injection. His business model has failed. Let's say they reach the goal, and they burn through that amount of cash they are requesting. There are no refunds to anyone. So, until they can show they are solvent by getting more funds from other sources, then I just don't see this going anyplace except a big black hole.

I know how kickstarter works, but you seem to fail to understand how a normal business works. It doesn't matter if he designed 1000 AAA games, his studio is BUST, no funds, that is why he is trying to get a cash injection. His business model has failed. Let's say they reach the goal, and they burn through that amount of cash they are requesting. There are no refunds to anyone. So, until they can show they are solvent by getting more funds from other sources, then I just don't see this going anyplace except a big black hole.

Once it's shown that there is interest in a title via a successful Kickstarter, publishers have often taken notice.

Problem is that Wildman just doesn't look that good so it's going to be a tough fight to get fully funded.

Fuck it. I just threw in $45. It is unlikely GPG will make their funding goal, and the game doesn't really appeal to me, and even if it gets funded I don't think it's going to make GPG enough money to stay solvent post-release.

But... Dungeon Siege and stuff. CT is a nice guy, I ran into a few times when I worked at Microsoft and he seemed really down to earth. I've wasted more money on worse things.